New York Times abandons WPF and Silverlight in favor of AIR

Re:New York Times abandons WPF and Silverlight in favor of AIR by greyboy on Friday May 22, 2009 @01:30PM (#622392)

> I recently discovered I can watch many of the games broadcast by ESPN on ESPN360.

You appear to be one of the chosen who have access. My super-huge-ISP only gets me this message:

  ESPN360.com is available at no charge to fans who receive   
  their high-speed internet connection from an ESPN360.com 
  affiliated internet service provider. ESPN360.com is also 
  available to fans that access the internet from U.S. 
  college campuses and U.S. military bases.

  Your current computer network falls outside of these 
  categories. Here’s how you can get access to ESPN360.com.

Awesome...

> aside from the initial annoyance of waiting for Silverlight to install itself (which I did because it was the only way to watch the Olympics broadcasts).

You know, I tried to do the same thing. And on both machines I tried it on, Silverlight failed to install with some cryptic, unhelpful error message. Both machines were running Windows XP and installing inside IE. I couldn't believe I was seriously having problems with Microsoft installing Silverlight correctly in its own browser.

I browse with all audio/video media disabled by default - and I dislike RMS. If there is something I absolutely must see, I open IE to view it. Fortunately for me, I hardly need Flash and never need Silverlight.

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Re:New York Times abandons WPF and Silverlight in favor of AIR by jimbokun on Friday May 22, 2009 @03:45PM (#622608)

I'm curious, is your ISP a cable company? I have DSL through Verizon, and maybe they like the idea I can watch ESPN without paying Comcast for it. I wonder if they will block it if FiOS comes to my area (but I've been told that Comcast and the city of Pittsburgh have a sweetheart deal to block it).

In any case, blocking content is exactly the kind of thing we should be mad about. If I can access the content I want free or for a reasonable price on the device of my choosing (Mac in my case), I am very happy regardless of the underlying technology. But ISPs blocking content their customers want is only a feasible business strategy with a government backed monopoly and as consumers we should be upset about it.

Lastly, I am starting to suspect that the networks who create content would be perfectly happy to see cable companies reduced to common carrier status and deliver all their shows and broadcasts through Hulu or their own branded web sites. I would love to see the networks lobbying against the cable companies in Congress.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:New York Times abandons WPF and Silverlight in favor of AIR by philwelch on Friday May 22, 2009 @05:04PM (#622719)

ESPN360 is usually sold to ISP's and bundled with internet service. It's not so much a matter of "blocking" as "not buying". It's a weird business model, but it was enough to switch me from Time Warner cable (which was excellent through and through) to Verizon DSL (which has no other redeeming characteristics).

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